Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr Fitzpatrick. I will make a few comments. Senator McGreehan referred to the absence of political institutions. Of course, a lot of this work on a North-South basis should have been taking place at the North-South Ministerial Council where Ministers meet in sectoral format. They could have been making progress in regard to a convergence of systems and one learning from the other hoping to bring the better parts of the other system into one's own schemes. Senator Ó Donnghaile and I heard Dr. Fitzpatrick speak very animatedly at Ulster University a few weeks ago with regard to childcare and the difficulties due to a lack of childcare strategies for many years. Dr. Fitzpatrick has highlighted today that where there is not adequate support for childcare it puts a particular onus on families and more so on mothers.

I have a few comments. Earlier, the Cathaoirleach and Senator McGreehan mentioned the value of community welfare officers. Unfortunately in this country in recent years we have lost a lot of these officers. There are fewer of them now and people do not have as good access to them as they had in the past. There is nothing to beat an official having some local knowledge and knowing families. I have served as a public representative for many decades. My colleagues and I have approached community welfare officers to raise the cases of families for which serious difficulties, such as illness or bereavement, have arisen. I know of many instances where community welfare officers knew who to support. That support was readily given, whether on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. This system worked very well. We do not have enough of it in person now.

Something that is often neglected in society is that we think everybody has IT skills and access to apply online. In our public governance and the delivery of public services, and this goes for private companies also, very little tolerance is shown for people who do not have IT knowledge or IT skills. It is reprehensible. If people try to ring any big public utility, apart from public service offices, they are asked to press X, Y or Z and cannot get talking to anyone. This is a terrible infringement on the rights of individuals. From the point of view of the community welfare officer, I would love to see the numbers being reversed to have more community welfare officers who are more locally based and know more of the families and clientele. I can recall so well so many instances over the years of other public representatives and I contacting them when a family ran into a particularly difficulty. There was always help and support. Many of those officers went way beyond the call of duty.

Senator McGreehan said she had a bad experience when dealing with social welfare. My experience is that the overwhelming majority of officials work very hard. They want to support people. In our line of work, that of the witnesses or any other profession, there are people who do not do their jobs adequately. That is deplorable. It is very important to have local knowledge.

I am delighted the all-island social security network has been established. We can learn so much from one another and take what is good in our system and transpose it, hopefully, to Northern Ireland andvice versa. With regard to pensions, something that is often overlooked is that we speak about Britain funding pensions in this country but we fund a huge number of pension of Irish people domiciled in Britain and that is quite right. It is a substantial transfer of money. I do not think there would be any doubt of this. This did not just start in 2019. Mentioned was made in Dr. Fitzpatrick's paper of the convention on social security of 2019. To my knowledge, this system has existed for many years.

Dr. Boland mentioned people being brought in for meetings. If people are brought in for meetings it should not be in an intimidatory fashion under any circumstance. Senator Currie referred to activation being important. I can recall some people over the years who were in long-term unemployment and in receipt of long-term payments. They got encouragement from some officials that there might be a suitable course available that would meet their particular needs. It should not be a matter of compulsion. It should be encouragement to facilitate a person whom an official thinks is suitable to follow a particular course and get into employment. I know people who had the fear of God when they received a letter to go into the office and subsequently said it was one of the best things that ever happened and they were given an option to take up a course. They took up employment and, thankfully, they have been in employment since. Is there enough interaction between the Department of Social Protection and the Department in Northern Ireland with regard to colleges, further education, providing courses and meeting the needs of people on long-term social welfare? These really could activate their skills, give them some basic skills and give them an opportunity and pathway into employment. Again, I emphasise this is not about compulsion. I would appreciate it if Dr. Boland or Dr. Fitzpatrick would comment on this.